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Why teens are wired for risk
CNN: It was hot at 3 a.m. in a small town in North Carolina, and there wasn't a lot for a group of teenagers to do. So, Hillary Tillotson, her brother and three other guys sneaked under a fence to go swimming at a private pool down the street. Only Tillotson and her then-boyfriend kept their clothes on, she said. Two days later, a cop showed up at Tillotson's house. Some of the teens' accomplices had been bragging about their skinny-dipping adventure, and someone turned them in for trespassing. She and her brother had to go to court; their mother paid the fine. "Sometimes I wonder where their brains are at," Tillotson's mother, Lori Lee, said of her children.
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Vietnam official teed off about tee time
Globe and Mail: Reds no match for golf “Vietnam’s transport minister has banned officials from playing golf because, he said, too much time spent on the course had affected their performance at work,” BBC News reports. “The department said devotion to the game, even during holiday time, was partly responsible for sluggish productivity by some staff. Golf was once considered a bourgeois activity by the communist authorities in Vietnam. However, its popularity has surged among a rapidly growing middle class.” A good swim, spoiled “The Maldives is planning to build a floating golf course overlooking coral reefs and connected by underwater tunnels,” Orange News U.K. says.
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8 Percent of Parents Regret Their Baby’s Name, Survey Finds
ABC News: It took Kelcey Kintner nine months to conceive her baby girl's name, Presley, but nearly a year of gnawing regret before she changed it. Kintner, a 41-year-old who blogs about parenting on Mama Bird Diaries, said she and her husband chose the name Presley from a baby book, not as an homage to the king of rock, even though their older daughter's name is Dylan. "I actually like the name Presley -- I don't dislike the name," said Kintner, who lives in Westchester County, N.Y.
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Medical: Teen brains are a work in progress
The Seattle Times: How do teens alternate between shoplifting a case of beer, then "borrowing" a car and at other times scoring the winning goal or singing the National Anthem at perfect key? The answer, of course, is that their brains are a work in progress, still churning out new bundles of cells and knitting them together with connections that may not be fully fashioned until they're well into their 20s. Researchers are finding more and more evidence that those cells and connections play multiple roles in developing not only self- control and forethought, but personality, social skills and, on the downside, mental disorders.
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A New Discipline Emerges: The Psychology of Science
You’ve heard of the history of science, the philosophy of science, maybe even the sociology of science. But how about the psychology of science? In a new article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, San Jose State University psychologist Gregory J. Feist argues that a field has been quietly taking shape over the past decade, and it holds great promise for both psychology and science. “Science is a cognitive act by definition: It involves personality, creativity, developmental processes,” says Feist—everything about individual psychology. So what is the psychology of science?
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Scientific “freedom” and the Fountain of Youth
“Chronological rejuvenation” is psychological jargon for the Fountain of Youth, that elusive tonic that, when we find it, will reverse the aging process. Though many of us would welcome such a discovery, most of us also know it’s a fantasy, a scientific impossibility. So imagine my surprise when I came across this passage while browsing the journal Psychological Science.
